TroyK

No... it's still there. It's the 2nd half of the page which begins with this bolded heading: "The following text (placed on our website 2004) was totally valid for more than 14 years yet and in respect of the above is still valid for more than 99,9% of all skydivers." TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Broken link. I think the link got messed up by a copy-and-paste rather than right-click and select "Copy Link" (so that the whole URL is copied, rather than the condensed version with ellipsis) Yup... that's exactly what happened. Fixed now (in my posts). TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

A couple people in the "incident" thread were interested in seeing my article from 2003 on this topic. I have placed the original article text and my unpublished rebuttal letter here: http://swoop.skydiveworld.com/c_article/aad_article_background.htm As stated on the "background" page, I don't have access to the letter to the editor which was written by a company representative. TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Thanks, FemaleFlyer. Gettin' late :) TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Hi All; Some of the Intermediate competitors expressed an interest in seeing images from the Canopy Piloting competition at Nationals. They are now up on http://www.eyeonmotion.com. Click on "Recent Events -> PST, USPA Nationals". Ann and I took quite a few images, so if you would like to see more, email me with your name and canopy colors and I'll get a gallery of the best images put up for you to look at. If any of you Open competitors would like to see your stuff, let us know. I have some killer images of the first freestyle rounds, as well as the other comps. On a related note... does anyone know how to get in touch with Mike McGowan on the web? His site, funairproductions.com doesn't seem to be up anymore. He may have some pics of me competing in Open that I might like prints of. Blues! TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Got it... oh the vagaries of time-varying forum pages TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

So where is a more appropriate place to post a link to a series of pictures of a Swoop comp? Nice pics, BTW. I wish I could have stayed around for the freestyle rounds. TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

OK.... I've embiggened the pictures so they should be easier to see now. Enjoy! TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

I have my pictures from the latest PST event in Wildwood, NJ up at http://www.eyeonmotion.com. Click on "Recent Events" -> "PST Wildwood" to check 'em out. Swoop Hard! TroyK TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Another interesting factoid from my article (09/2003 issue of Skydiving, BTW). The max calculated descent speed I reached was 84 MPH on a VX 86 loaded at around 2.6:1. TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Do you remember the concluding paragraph in my Cypres fire article? Here it is verbatim: "If you are jumping a highly loaded cnopy and are using a CYPRES (or similar "expert model" AAD), consider carefully your landing approaches." As would be expected, there was a lengthy letter to the editor written by a representative of Airtec published in the following month's Skydiving magazine basically questioning the validity of my testing methodology. I wrote a response to that letter defending my results, but it was never published, so I guess Airtec got the last word. Regardless of the accuracy of this particular account, I stand by my conclusion that high performance turns and AAD's are a dangerous combination. I would appreciate it if anyone could put me in touch with the jumper and the rigger who inspected the equipment for the event described in the OP. TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

I put up some more pics (requests) in another gallery: http://swoop.skydiveworld.com/pstfreestyle2/ (note the "2" on the end). I have an "art" picture of Leif (motion blur) in this gallery, and would be interested in feedback on it. Nice effect or not? TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Thanks for the props, everyone. Courteney; I was using the Canon 70-200mm 2.8 IS zoom on a D-30 body (sometimes with the 1.4x extender). Also, sometimes I had a 2-stop ND filter and a polarizer on the lens to cut down on water glare. I shot most everything wide open on the lens (2.8 or 4.0 aperature, depending on whether or not extender was in use). The camera settings were for large/fine .jpg which allows for more shots in burst mode before the camera's buffer fills. The 70-200mm IS is a rather expensive lens, and I love shooting it. However, I've had pictures published (PST Oregon in July '03) that I shot through a borrowed 75-300 (which is a LOT less $$). In fact, the top right photo of JC on the PST 2003 swoop video is from that batch. My only complaint with my current setup is that the D-30 servo focus can't quite keep up with the action. I lost quite a few shots to focus issues that weekend. It will all be better when I get ahold of the 1D Mark II though TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Thanks, everyone! I'm really enjoying using the new lens. Now to get my hands on a 1d Mk II :) And Eric... don't you know that you should always check your landing area for obstacles, including copyright notices? TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

I finally got a gallery of some of my images from the PST Freestyle Open up and running: http://swoop.skydiveworld.com/pstfreestyle/ Attached is a sample. Enjoy! TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

An excellent link on model releases: http://www.danheller.com/model-release.html Great discussion, BTW. Thanks for bringing this up, Paul. I actually found this thread after doing a google search to try and find the difference between "transitional" and "target" rates as used in the editorialphoto.com use fee estimation software. I had planned to start a thread on it, and, lo and behold, another skydiver beat me to the punch :) For those interested, the difference is that "transitional" is the fee that an inexperienced negotiator might expect when negotiating with a magazine who is negotiating "in good faith", whereas the "target" rate is what an experienced negotiator would likely get. Check out this pdf for more explanation as to the rationalle behind the rates reflected by the estimator: http://www.fotography.net/estimatorguide150.pdf As for where I come down on this issue... I don't make my living in photography, but at the same time, I don't want to make it harder for those that do by undercutting their pricing. I think that compensation for images, be they for editorial or commercial use, needs to reflect the additional risk and expense that a skydiving photographer assumes. I would like to see the magazines move towards a compensation model more in line with the rates calculated at editorialphoto.com. When you think about how many images are actually published in the magazine, it doesn't represent a significant increase in their costs to use the photos. The benefit? Photographers get paid more what they're worth, and the quality of pictures in the magazines (which, after all, plays a significant role in driving their ad revenue) goes up. TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

http://www.avweb.com/newswire/10_06a/briefs/186633-1.html Check out the video links. Great pictures, too. TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Does a PC9 have a "reset" pin-button like the PC100? I was having condensation probs with my PC100 which wouldn't clear after thorough drying. The "reset" button fixed it right up. If you do this, you have to reset your clock and other settings (image stabilization, etc.) HTH, TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Whoops! Correction Dan, SDO's pond is 60' wide. Trust me! I've been in there in a wetsuit removing the algea, and it's a big job! TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Bumping this because Tye and I are also looking for anyone that wants to split a room for the Panama City competition. We'll be arriving Tuesday PM/Wednesday AM and leaving Sunday PM. We can bring sleeping bags and mats, if needed. My e-mail is listed in my profile. TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton

Here's some pics of a Mr. Bill on a VX 86. 450 lbs total weight = approx 5.24:1 wingloading. We did a toggle turn and hit freefall speeds (as measured by video timing and altitude loss during the turns). http://www.skydiveworld.com/swoop/_mrbill/mrbill86.html Enjoy! TroyK "Free your mind, and your ass will follow" - George Clinton